“Chaos on CatNet” by Naomi Kritzer

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Rating: 3/5 Stars

An interesting book about what may happen if an AI wants to spread chaos from behind the scenes, but let down by an ending that only tells you what happened without actually showing you.

Beginning where the previous book ends, Steph has enrolled in a new, hopefully more permanent, school. There, she meets another new girl, Nell, who had been homeschooled by her cult-religious mother. Nell’s mother has apparently gone missing, forcing her to live with her estranged father and lived-in partners, and is now being sent to school.

Both are asked to sign up to a social network that, like Pokémon Go, gives them tasks to do separately and together in set locations to get ‘points’. The tasks start out a bit unusual, but slowly turn serious when some tasks ask them to leave unusual messages for other people and even to steal items.

Steph and the CatNet AI, CheshireCat, believe that there is another AI out there, and Steph suspects the other AI may be behind the social network and maybe other networks, including one that Nell uses to keep in touch with her religious cult group. Not only that, the other AI is deliberately creating conflicts between the social network groups. It is only when various clues fall into place that Steph, Nell, CheshireCat and the other people on CatNet realize what it all leading up to and have to work out how to stop it.

As with the previous book, this story is told from a first-person viewpoint, switching between the viewpoints of Steph, Nell, CheshireCat and the CatNet group (clowder). We get an account of the investigations and clues that gradually lead them to conclude what the other AI is planning to do and how to stop it.

Unfortunately, the actual steps taken to stop the AI are rushed, which somewhat deflates the ending of a book that features a number of interesting YA and adult characters who can accomplish things you wouldn’t expect them to be able to do.

Still, an interesting near-future story of a world that has AIs that may or may not have the interests of people in mind.

Book read from 2021/10/06 to 2021/10/13